1. January 31, 2006 (Bangalore) Quality Priority in Service Engagements Dr. Partha Pratim Das Interra Systems (India) Pvt. Ltd.

2. Agenda

Recap

• Organizational Objectives

• Typical Work Cycle

Quality

• What is Quality?

• Why is Quality Significant?

• Quality Perspectives

• Interra Quality Plan

Q & A

3. Organizational Objectives

Increase Efficiency

Increase Effectiveness

4. Organizational Objectives

Increase Efficiency

• Do things RIGHT

• Lines of quality code produced per man-hour

• Instances of quality support provided per man-week

Increase Effectiveness

• Do RIGHT things

• Lines of quality code produced per dollar

• Cost for every instance of support

5. Typical Work Cycle

A typical cycle can be

• Need

• Requirements

• Design

• Code / Perform

• QA

• QC

6. What is Quality?

A degree or grade of excellence or worth

• Dictionary Meaning

Meeting and exceeding expectations

Quality is NOT Grade. Because

• Low Grade / High Quality

• • Few features

• • No obvious bugs

• • Good Documentation

• Low Quality / High Grade

• • Many bugs

• • Poor Documentation

• • Many features

7. What is Quality?

The totality of characteristics of an entity that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs

• PMBOK, 2000.

Somewhere down the line, we need to stop and think what the customer actually wants - and what more we can do which would make a difference to their perception. . Kousik Mukherjee, Dir. Of Engg,, Interractions Vol 4(3). 8. Why is Quality Significant?

To meet specs

To meet targets

To pass acceptance tests

To be efficient and effective

9. Why is Quality Significant?

Quality is the most important factor that

• determines the value of the product or the engineering solution

• helps engage with a customer at an emotional level

• • recommendations

• • repeat business

• drives business growth

Quality is what distinguishes a good company from a great one.

10. Why is Quality Significant?

"Improvements in quality always and automatically result in

• reductions in schedules and costs,

• increases in productivity,

• increases in market share, and consequently

• increases in profits."

• • Out Of The Crisis, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, Cambridge: MIT Center for Advanced Engineering, 1986.

11. Quality Perspectives

Notions in Quality Management

• Quality Planning

• • Identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project and determining how to satisfy them

• Quality Assurance

• • Evaluating overall project performance on a regular basis to provide confidence that the project will satisfy the relevant quality standards

• Quality Control

• • Monitoring specific project results to determine if they comply with relevant quality standards and identifying ways to eliminate causes of unsatisfactory performance

12. Quality Perspectives

Quality Intervention at Various Stages

• Prevention at Origin

• • Requirements / Design

• Containment by Appraisal / Review

• • Spec Review, Design Review, Code Review

• Wake up after Internal Failures

• • Unit Testing, Developer Testing, Regressions

• Fire Fight on External Failures

• • Testing by Customer, At the field after deployment

13. Quality Perspectives

The Cost Of Fixing Defects

• An unpublished IBM rule of thumb for the relative costs:

• • during design, 0.5;

• • prior to coding, 1;

• • during coding, 1.5;

• • prior to test, 10;

• • during test, 60;

• • in field use, 100.

14. Quality Perspectives

The Cost Of Fixing Defects

• Remove as many defects as early in development as possible.

• Remove as many defects as is reasonably possible before the delivery.

Bugs squashed early rarely threaten a project's deadline and budget.Scientific American, September 1994. 15. Quality Perspectives

Product / Solution / Software Quality

• Usability.

• • Is the product easy to learn and use? Does it require training and technical support before any productivity increases occur?

• • • Example, ZenTime learning loops

• Efficiency.

• • Does it utilize the resources (memory, execution time, license etc) conservatively?

• • • Example, Performance increase in NDM, CDA & TDL Utility

• Reliability.

• • Does the software perform the job it's supposed to without crashing or causing errors, even in stressful environmental conditions?

• • • Example, TDLChecker (limitation on the number of TDL files), TDLGen (limitation on hierarchical path)

• Integrity.

• • Does the product prevent unauthorized or improper access to its programs and its data?

• Adaptability.

• • Can the software be used, without modification, in applications or environments other than those for which it was specifically designed?

• • • Example, EDAObjects on several platforms.

16. Quality Perspectives

Process Quality

• Maintainability.

• • Can the software be easily modified to change or add capabilities, improve performance, or correct defects?

• • • Example, Plug-and-Play Architecture of Unified Prime and CC-DFTM

• Flexibility.

• • Can the product be modified for users or environments other than those for which it was specifically designed?

• • • Example, Handoff QC SoC Integration, Library Verification, Test Handoff.

• Portability.

• • Does the software easily operate in an environment different from that for which it was specifically designed?

• • • Example,

• Reusability.

• • To what extent can the components of the software be used to build new products?

• • • Example, DTIF Design Test Input Format. Called by Perl Callback. MVV.

• Understandability.

• • Is the source code, especially at the detailed-statement level, easy to read? Is the software easy to understand at both the system- organizational and detailed-statement levels?

• • • Example, For every release one should have SoW, SRS, WBS, SDD, STP, Release Notes and Metricate Sheet.

17. Quality Perspectives

Quality is about perception

• In most scenarios, degree of excellence is not measurable objectively

• • Particularly true in services or solutions based businesses like ours

• • • Sundars perception on DFT-TK

• • • Claudins perception on RTL-TK

• • • Daniels perception on DV-TK

• • • Vaidees perception on AutoRTL

• • • Sabys perception on PD

• • • Amits perception on Package Analysis

• Quality could be redefined to be the customers perception of the degree of excellence

Quality is the Entire Company's Business

Quality Must Be Built into a Product / Solution

18. Quality Perspectives

How to develop quality perception?

• Not just by the quality of the end product or solution that you deliver

• Quality becomes important at every stage of the project

• • Quality of Communication

• • Intermediate deliverables

• • Processes that are followed

• • Conducts in the meetings

• Patience, perseverance and planning

• Damage done when quality is missing at any level

19. Items inInterra Quality Initiative

Programming Guidelines

• Naming Conventions, preferred practices

• Safe Idioms / Unsafe Idioms

Debugging Methodology

• Built-in Tracer / Profiler

• Assertions

• Maintain a Problems Database

Code Review Process

• Self / Peer Review (Code Complete)

• Review by Manager / PL

Test plan & Testing Methodology *

• Unit / Directed Tests

• Random Tests

• Performance Tests

Quality Audit Plan

Issues Tracking Process

• GNATS / WEBS / Client-specific

Version Control Process

• CVS / ClearCase / Client-specific

Performance Metrics *

Release Process *

• PNB Project Note Book

Documentation Plan

• User Guide

• Code Documentation

• README, Checklist

Confidentiality Guidelines

• Sensitivity to Interras IP / Clients IP

Build Guidelines *

Portability Guidelines *

Environment Standards *

20. Q & A

• How could I have prevented this bug?

• How could I have automatically detected this bug?

21. Thank You